


Chisstober

by cathouse_mary



Category: Star Wars Legends: Thrawn Trilogy - Timothy Zahn, Star Wars: Thrawn Ascendancy Trilogy - Timothy Zahn, Star Wars: Thrawn Series - Timothy Zahn (2017)
Genre: Bisexuals in Space, Chiss ruling families are the Medici in space, F/F, F/M, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Lesbians in Space, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Planet Csilla (Star Wars), Shore Leave Shenanigans, Thranto, Whump, admiral-on-admiral action, chisstober, gamer nerd Eli, he loves soundtracks, orgies off duty, tharlani
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:28:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 31
Words: 17,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26782945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cathouse_mary/pseuds/cathouse_mary
Summary: Following the prompt list from Tumblr user Skywalkerthrawn - https://skywalkerthrawn.tumblr.com/ - from October 1 - 31Completed 10/31/20. Thank you to everyone who made the journey with me in a new fandom. These are barebacked and unbetaed, so forgive any roughness in form.Csilla - DONE, Admiral - DONE, Bonds - DONE, Ice - DONE, Holiday - DONE, Aliens - DONE, Navigator - DONE, Colonies - DONE, Pets - DONE, Diversity - DONE, Chaos - DONE, Victory - DONE, Loss - DONE, Music - DONE, Battle - DONE, Distance - DONE, Warmth - DONE, History - DONE, Wildlife - DONE, Aristocra - DONE, Memories  - DONE, Family  - DONE, Rivals - DONE, Peace  - DONE, Survival - DONE, Friendship - DONE, Warrior - DONE, Joy  - DONE, Language  - DONE, Healing  - DONE, Chimaera  - DONE
Relationships: Ar'alani/Karyn Faro, Ar'alani/Thrawn, Ar'alani/Thrawn | Mitth'raw'nuruodo/Eli Vanto
Comments: 295
Kudos: 96





	1. October 1 Challenge: Csilla

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> History of the Chiss homeworld - headcanon only.

The Chiss make no secret that they once allied with the Sith, or that it was a less than stellar chapter in their history. What has been buried deep is that the Sith were the reason that the garden paradise that was Csilla became the ball of ice it is today. The Sith were betrayers, and in the warfare that followed, Csilla was knocked several degrees from her orbit. One might not think that the initial distance, which one could walk in about half an hour, would make such a deep, horrible difference.

There were earthquakes, tidal waves, and volcanoes erupted - ash darkened the air and pyroclastic flows snuffed out life for miles around. The winter lasted longer, the spring crops lacking warmth never came to fruit, and the summer was short and sharp. Fires raged, no rain fell, and then winter came again with storms that froze millions to death in a matter of hours. Not months, not days. 

The Aristocra pulled together, marshalled the scarce resources left after unceasing war, and created the biggest public works project they could imagine. Every man, woman, and child was to work building great tunnels under the permafrost, heated with geothermal energy. Crops could grow under artificial light and foodstuffs could be imported from the colonies. At the same time, the Aristocra sent Chiss' colonies thousands of new settlers. Fewer mouths to feed could mean more mouths fed. They mounted a campaign to expand the new defense and expeditionary forces - food and a warm place to sleep sold enough people to staff ship after ship. And it worked - Csilla lived. 

However, only the Aristocra knew that it was not true survival, but life support. Csilla's orbit could not be stabilized, not at the current level of technology. In time, the cold would grow deeper, and some time in a far future, she would leave her orbit and wander the stars - growing ever colder, the ice deeper, until her internal fires died and took the last of life left with it.


	2. October 2 Challenge: Admiral

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ar'alani's thoughts post-Rebels and post-Treason.

Admiral

When she ceased to be Irizi'ar'alani she understood that she was sundered from family, but until she attained the rank of admiral, that understanding was skin deep. Yes, joining the Defense Force was a vocation on a par with those of the legendary warrior monks from the dawn of the Chiss. It was a sacrifice she hardly felt, so glad was she to give it. As admiral, she had freedom. While she still had to be mindful of the everlasting political intrigues, at the same time she was above it - and able to pull her own strings.

Much to her family's irritation when it came to Thrawn.

There was, she admitted, a time when she had a mighty thirst for him and and admitted to a certain fondness for him. He became to her a wayward and brilliant brother who had equal potential to save or destroy them all. Which is why, when the Imperial channels they routinely monitored spoke of the space-swimmers and the loss of the fleet over Lothal, the blow of that loss took her to her knees as if she laid a death-curse upon him.

_Oh, my brother. Oh, my friend. Please forgive me._

Her only hope was that there was someone there to pick him up, and set him back on his feet again. And for the first time since before she left for the academy, she prayed as a believer.

_Let him be alive. Set him back on his feet. Let him come home._


	3. October 3 Challenge: Bonds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bonds within bonds.

Bonds

It turns out that humans will bond with anything or anyone - they are perhaps the most eusocial of any species. They adopt animals that are not strictly needed for survival, they socialize other species as a matter of course, their young even adopt soft toys and speak to them as people! While Chiss will adopt across family lines or elevate one to the status of trial-born, it would be unthinkable to adopt an alien - though that is what the _Steadfast_ has done with Eli'van'to if you squint at it. So, perhaps it should not be a surprise that Ivant has seemingly adopted Un'hee.

And is as fierce as an ice-leopard with one cub, too.

They have been unable to find Un'hee's genetic family, a blow that caused her to regress for a time. Ivant pointed out that he had no family either - his family disowned him when he chose to follow Thrawn. Un'hee declared that she was making him her family. It caused something of a tempest on Csilla where there were families vying to make the heroic little _ozyly-esehembo_ a merit adoptive, even at her young age, but she had bonded to Eli'van'to and would not hear of it.

As for the normally level-headed human - Un'hee is his cub and you'll feel his teeth and claws if you try to interfere.

Thalias visited both on the Steadfast and later on Csilla. As a trial-born who had the ear of the Patriel, it was an interesting six weeks of pained silence and awkwardness from the Mitth. At the end of leave, a literal hour before taking a shuttle back to the _Steadfast_ , Syndic Thurfian managed to find his big-boy pants and his spine in order to announce Mitth'eli'vanto and Mitth'un'hee as merit-adoptives. Ar'alani informed the pair of the decision, and then had to ask what made Eli smile so. His smiles have been rare these last months. 

"Well, Admiral, I've always wanted to see Thurfian sit down and eat a big plate of crow."


	4. October 4 Challenge: Ice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chiss have cold feet.

Ice

Karyn knows that the Chiss have ice-cold feet. When one is in a warm bed, sleeping cozily under the thick blankets, a pair of big blue feet on the backside wakes one as effectively as blocks of ice placed in the same area. Complaints of a frostbitten butt do nothing but to bring strong arms around your sleep-warm body, tucking you into a full-body spooning. Blue lips with an incongruously pink tongue find your neck, your shoulder, your jawline as explanations murmur in your ears - along with a warm cajoling.

"-but you're so warm. You don't really need to sleep in clothes, do you?"

The cold is temporary. How can it be otherwise? Chiss can read infrared emitting humans, see the smallest expansion of capillaries carrying hot, red blood. The emotional state is an open book, but where blood gathers, engorges, so does the physical read true to mouth and fingers. Sleepwear off. Blankets askew. Warmth to heat, heat to searing desire. Karyn's fingers tangle in long black hair as Ar'alani ohpleasepleaseoh-

Then the wicked blue witch bloody well stops just as Karyn's back arches, fingers stroking lightly enough to tease but nothing else. Her glowing red eyes blink innocently up at Karyn as she licks her glistening lips. "I am sorry, but your thighs were blocking my ears. I couldn't hear a word you said."


	5. October 5 Challenge: Holiday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ziara satisfies her appetite.

Holiday

Ziara is determined. The past four shore leaves, Thrawn managed to inveigle her into spending the time in museums and art galleries and then expending physical energy in a dojo somewhere. Tonight is traditionally the date of Long Night on Csilla, the darkest and coldest time of year, though the holiday is celebrated with bright clothing, public feasting, music, and dancing to drive back the darkness. There are also more private and intimate celebrations after said feasting, music, and dancing.

Ziara is fond of her wayward Mitth, and as much as they are senior to junior, she is still curious. Thrawn has an intense physicality, his form appealing, and whenever anyone has made a firm pass… well… it's a complete swish. Goes right by him. Not even a blink. On this leave, Thrawn is minorly lathered at not being able to find an art gallery or museum near the Inn of Nine Flames.

Ziara has a proposition for him.

"But is it art?"

"It absolutely is. The Merchee take great pride in their food and drink - its presentation is their only art form, and they create stunning displays for it with drinking vessels, serving dishes, and even instruments for serving and eating." Ziara watched him waver, but she researched this for the last six weeks. "Even the vessels are ephemeral - meant to be consumed. The restaurants here are temples to their gods, and when one consumes a meal, one is said to be acting on behalf of the god."

"As long as I'm the one who gets a full belly then I suppose it might be interesting."

Thus it is that they put on civilian festival clothing and go out from their lodging. Hailing a skiff, they ply the canals of Chee'fa, seeking what is essentially a temple of eating. Their rower recommends the temple of Hamn-Mer and Alith-Kei as having the best and most sumptuous offerings for their holiday feast.

"Couches like lying down on a cloud, food and drink the likes of which will please the gods-"

"And a kickback for you for taking us there?" Ziara queries.

The Merchee's neck frill undulates, "A small one only, Chiss lady. I do not lie when I say my own family makes their dedications there on Suns Day."

The temple is built of light woods and stones in flowing, sensual lines. A quick glance at Thrawn shows him lost in the architecture even as the appetizing and intriguing scents waft out of the inner sanctum. Ziara is confident that he will never see it coming. They change out of their festival clothing into light robes that stir in the faint breeze from the Bay of Nich, and are anointed by the priests. In the temple, they pass by curtained rooms where acolytes slip in and out, bearing covered trays before they come to one that's unoccupied. The couch is as comfortable as promised, and she and Thrawn lounge hip to hip as they are presented with dish after dish.

Each is no more than three bites and concentrating on different textures, blends of flavors, or a single note of flavor. The beverages are likewise served in vessels that dissolve as they are drained, leaving only memories on the lips and tongue. Finally dessert is served. Ziara has half-melted - spooned from behind by Thrawn, and his thumb finds a place of interest on the inside of her wrist. They carefully tap their drinks together as the acolytes withdraw, bowing almost to the floor. The drink is unexpectedly warming, her lips tingling with it.

The priest returns, bowing deeply. "Hamn-Mer and Alith-Kei were present at the making of the world, when the Mother Night separated the sky from the water. Where they had been one, they now were two. Alith-Kei was the sky and Hamn-Mer the sea below her. Each a perfect blue and yearning to be one again. You, both of a perfect blue, have feasted as gods. May you become one." 

Ziara's mind skids around with a 'Wait. What?' as the priest bows himself out.

Thrawn's mouth curves in a rare smile. "You were right. This is art, Ziara."

While she is still trying to formulate a reply, Thrawn's lips give her a lingering taste of the drink, the sweetness and heat of the dessert. The silken slide of the robe against her skin seemingly amplified, and she wonders if skin can be hungry for touch. She moves her hand down Thrawn's silk-covered thigh and thinks that, yes, skin can be hungry not just to be touched but to touch. The movement of muscle, the quickening of breath, the senses unfolding a banquet, where hands and lips meet.


	6. October 6 Challenge: Aliens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ar'alani informs Eli of a Chiss tradition.

Aliens

It is hard to think of Eli Vanto as an alien, so much has he become one of the Chiss in word and manner. However, he has blind spots that one could chuck the entire fleet through, but not being raised by Chiss, he wanders in ignorance. Giving one's personal journal to another is an act of intimacy, an act not just of friendship but of pairing. In essence, giving the one you love access to your deepest thoughts. Ar'alani kicks herself for forgetting Commander Vanto is not simply a decolored Chiss. She found him reading the journal, and he said that he read it for comfort. The silence grew enough to generate a gravity well and Ar'alani shifted - her cheeks warming.

"Admiral? What is it that you have to tell me that you believe I will not want to hear?"

Thrawn might not have explained matters, he having… or had… no, it was having because he was still alive somewhere dammit… some blind spots himself. However, Ar'alani has tacit permission to lay everything out for Commander Vanto because he asked. Alien he might be, but he is Chiss by a technical adoption, and so here she goes. Perhaps a third of the way through her explanation, the whites of his eyes grow to an startling size and his infrared signature is almost blinding.

"Eli, why would you not want your future spouse to know all your deepest thoughts and desires?"

Eli's forehead meets the desk hard enough to be alarming.

"Art. He wrote about art?" She reaches for the journal only to have it pulled out of reach. "Sexual congress? He did tell me that humans are very reserved about it. It's a wonder you manage to breed at all…" Eli proceeds to make noises that make no sense at all and she makes another grab for the journal only to be evaded again. "Have you had sexual congress with him? Have you ever had sexual congress with anyone? Self-pleasure? Are you supposed to turn that color? It doesn't look healthy to me-"


	7. October 7 Challenge: Navigator

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The navigators get the hero they deserve.

Navigator

Un'hee was tired of everyone telling her that she'd forget. 

She had been taken at five to become a navigator, the ship transporting her from her parents and home captured. Her caretaker made a 'gift' of her to the Gryssk - who already knew what navigators did. Then she was rescued and quickly fobbed off on someone else who was supposed to take care of her. Another round of nightmares and overload followed an argument that she had to obey her caretaker - a overly fake-sweet woman who was angry that Un'hee did not simply fall into moon-eyed obedience. The other young navigators kept their distance from her, the older ones were afraid to interfere. In the middle of all of this, Un'hee feels a familiar and unwelcome sensation - they're wearing her down. Breaking her as she'd been broken before. How many times had she dreamed of rescue and freedom? Of finding her parents and siblings again, or even someone who cared? Vah'nya touches Un'hee's shoulder in comfort as the tears spill again and Ufsa'miri'emba chides the eldest navigator for interrupting a conversation between navigator and caretaker. 

"If you were taking care of her, that might be a valid complaint. I've been a navigator for fifteen years, and I speak from personal experience when I say that you're the biggest idiot any of us have ever been tasked with." The gasps from navigators and caretakers is music to Un'hee's ears. "You've done nothing but order and criticize since the minute your family stuck you in here. You don't even know the first thing about navigators, and seem to be unable or unwilling to learn."

Samirie's face darkens almost to violet as she draws herself up. "I am blood of the Ufsa family and-" 

"I don't care if you're the Father Sticklegs's third daughter. The ship can do its job without you, but it can't do its job without us."

* Father Sticklegs is a mythical being used to scare naughty little Chiss.


	8. October 8 Challenge: Colonies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eli is shown how the Chiss do holidays in the colonies.

Colonies

Csillan Chiss tend to take a view of the colonies that Eli is very familiar with. It surprises him when Ar'alani tells him that Thrawn was a merit adoptive from a colonial family, as he showed a very upper-crust manner to Eli's perception. The colonial Chiss that Eli has met remind him very much of the Outer Rim and Wild Space folk he grew up with. 

"It's Long Night, Ivant. You have to dress up and go out with us!"

His shipmates are in his office, arms full of festival clothes. They want to cheer him up, and that alone makes it worth some effort on his part. Festival clothes are in all shades of color - it's said to be unlucky to wear family colors on Long Night - and embroidered with representations of spring such as flowers and fruit. Since he's not from an agricultural family, the symbolism escapes him completely. Eli thinks little of it as the normally formal, reserved Chiss proceed to party their doors off and take him along for the ride. He does his share of drinking and dancing - needing to do the former to do the latter - and feasts from public tables along with everyone else. His shipmates explain to anyone who looks at them that Ivant is adopted into the fleet. The family-oriented Chiss colonials declare that if he's going to be Chiss, then he's going to be adopted by a real family - not just a ship. 

Subsequently, Eli finds that inter-family holiday disputes among Chiss - like those of his homeworld - involve shouting, throwing furniture, breaking dishes, and a visit from the authorities. It's a comfort that some things are universal. As is evading said authorities. He and Velbb stow themselves away in what looks to be an off-season holiday cabin, lying under the kitchen table and sharing the bottle of whatever it is that they're drinking - another trio of universal holiday traditions - waiting for the authorities to call off the search.

Velbb cracks up at Eli's account of holidays past. "I think our colonial cultures are more similar than not."

"As long as nobody says, "Hold my beer!" I think we'll be fine." 

They're both drunk enough that the floor is comfortable, face-to-face with an emptied bottle between them, faces close enough to warm each other with their breath.

"Ivant?" Velbb's legs are tangling with his. 

"Hm?

"Do humans kiss?"

Eli blinks. "We do."

"Because it's unlucky if you end Long Night without at least a kiss."

Eli is caught flat-footed by the arrival of said kiss, delivered with decided skill and enthusiasm. Velbb's lips are cool, but the inside of their mouth is warm and eager. It's been so long since he was intimate with anyone that Eli almost fumbles before delivering his own. 

When they break for breath Eli murmurs, "You said 'at least a kiss.'"

Velbb chuckles, "The very least. Unless humans reserve the logical progression for espousing or breeding only."

"Mm. No. Do the Chiss?"

The answer rolls Eli onto his back, fingers in Velbb's hair, and half out of his borrowed finery before he properly understands what's happening. They both get caught on the intricate lacings of the coats, there's too many buttons, and they have to kick off each other's boots. Velbb is physically female, something Eli had been uncertain about. 

"There's a bed in here somewhere." 

"Yes, Ivant, but you make a nice warm blanket." 

She grinds with her legs locked around his hips and his brain blisses out at the messages from his cock. Her breasts fit neatly in his cupped hand as-

"I'm not sure if Chiss and humans are fertile with one another-"

Velbb laughs, tilting her hips to take him in. "Standard implant for all female officers - the only thing you'll get from me is a plate of scrambled eggs." 

Eli groans and laughs as she squeezes around him, finding that sex and laughter are not mutually exclusive. "Velbb, that's awful." 

In answer, she pulls him down, finding a sweet and urgent rhythm for them both as the cold of the night melts away. "It's been long for you. I feel it. Give me, pretty Eli." 

Eli would rather eat his boots than to be so impolite to a bedmate. Instead, he presses his hand between them and finds that Chiss and human anatomy are roughly equivalent, and gives her a firm rub that makes her hit an amazing pure note as she comes around him. His back arches, equations shattering in his head as he finds a desperate release. 

~

It's some time later that he resurfaces, curled up with Velbb's fingers in his hair as she places a hand over his mouth. There's someone outside, jiggling the ancient knob and bolt. He and Velbb are both mother-naked, though perhaps Eli could throw some furniture and Velbb hit someone with the bottle. His mind presents him with Admiral Ar'alani's probably reaction to these shenanigans and he immediately suppresses it.

Using her comlink, Velbb rounds up those not in custody or passed out, directing them to the cabin. Price of admission is food and alcohol, and Velbb notes there is an absolutely huge bed in one of the rooms. 

"Who are you with, Velbb?"

"Ivant and I are here and very cozy. I told him I thought that Admiral Ar'alani is stacked and shocked him silly."

"It's me, Tanik at the door. Let me in?"

"All right. Password is 'Ar'alani's stacked' to get in."

Their shipmates arrive in twos and threes, bearing the requested items. It's late, he and Velbb are smashed and getting more smashed. As he's kissing her again on that huge bed he wonders if orgies are a part of holiday celebrations here. Someone is on his left, making quite free with the back of his neck and someone else is on the other side of Velbb. Everything is hot and slow, and at one point he is dizzily certain that he's mounted Tanik and has his mouth on Velbb. It is also evident that Chiss do not have body hair since he's been on such levels as to compare.

In the morning, or what he assumes is morning, he can feel Velbb spooning him and Tanik spooned in turn by Eli. There is also snoring in various registers, and when he peers through hungover eyes at the foot of the bed, he counts seven pairs of blue feet. 

And a white uniform standing at the foot of the bed. 

Eli croaks, "Admiral on the bridge!" which causes an almighty rustling and Tanik puts on his boots before he finds his pants. 

"QUIET."

And there is quiet. 

Ar'alani fixes them all with her gaze, and Eli only hopes that Ar'alani is polite enough not to slaughter them wholesale and mess up someone's cabin.

"Brawling. Vandalism. Disturbing the peace - whatever that means on Long Night - and resisting lawful detention. Breaking and entering. All in defense of a shipmate." Then she smiled. "Good job. I'll expect you all back on the bridge this evening and up to standard. Go straight to the shuttle - no more party time."

"Yes, Admiral!" 

~

Ar'alani entered the sleigh, looking quietly relieved. She'd given Eli'van'to the traditional year and a day of mourning - as accorded to a bereaved spouse. 

"So?" Ba'kif asked from the driver's position.

"I think he's back in some measure. He mourned Thrawn so deeply one might almost believe the old tales where surviving spouse dies of a broken heart." 

"So, my dear Admiral, did you."

"Nonsense." 

Ba'kif starts the sleigh, saying nothing but knowing better. "Do you think it's too late to get breakfast? The colonies always do hangover banquets best."

"I'd like that, Ba'kif. Thank you." 

Perhaps, when Ar'alani lays her mourning aside, they might find time for a celebration of their own.


	9. October 9 Challenge: Pets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ezra is normally good with animals.

Pets

Ezra is normally good with animals.

Which does not explain his bloody and lacerated hand, but does explain the smugness of the damned Chiss with the _pusheen-tyom_ in his lap. Thrawn was the one who saved it as a tiny kit and it tolerates nobody else. Not that there are anyone but the two of them here in any case.

"I didn't think that the Chiss kept pets."

" _Pusheen-tyom_ are not pets - they are co-inhabitants. They are fearsome guards, excellent night vision, and very loyal to their people."

"You being her people."

"Indeed." Thrawn's hands stroke the felinid's black-and-copper mottled fur, urging the hackles down and rubbing ears until the tail de-fluffs. "She thought you were going to take the meal she hunted for me."

Ezra stared. "I don't think you should eat that." The reptile is poisonous in every part.

"Don't worry. I am unlikely to suicide in that way."

That does worry him. Thrawn had a lot of pots on the cooktop, and Ezra had not so much as upset the pots as blown up the kitchen. There had been hard words about it in the first days of their stranding, and long days of silences. Billions dead and the genocide of the Chiss were what Thrawn laid at his feet. It was a bad surprise that the chief atrocity Ezra threw back at him was not actually Thrawn's but belonged wholly and solely to Pryce.

"Someone will find us." Ezra assures him. "They have to be looking."

The _pusheen-tyom_ increases its purring in response to Thrawn's stroking, but Thrawn says nothing, turning his gaze instead to the moon where the _Chimaera_ lies wrecked.


	10. October 10 Challenge: Diversity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eli Vanto expresses some opinions about Chaf'orm'bintrano.

Diversity

Ar'alani should have known better to unleash two very differently tempered humans on her homeworld while _Steadfast_ underwent repairs and refitting. The vast majority of Csilla and indeed the entire Ascendency had never seen humans before. Of course the Aristocra were going to take an interest and of course - as Eli said - when the shit hit the fan it would do so in a big way. It fell to Ba'kif to break the news to Ar'alani, and Ar'alani then had to tell Eli.

"Formbi."

"Formbi, yes." Eli's face suggested that he had just been served a giant plate of effluent.

"As in Chaf'orm'bintrano."

"The very same. You're getting better at pronouncing our names." Ignoring that if Eli used someone's full formal name, it meant that he really, really disliked them.

"So Brierly Ronan has bailed on us in favor of Chaf'orm'bintrano."

"Formbi said he needed a diversity of thought in his office." Oh, it was coming. Eli's face was heating, his lip was curling and his infrared signature suggested a drakyn. "Assistant Director Ronan had the organizational experience Formbi felt that he needed."

And ignition in three… in two… in one...

"The only diversity that puffed-up bag of piss and wind values is the diversity of lips kissing his ass-" Eli's fits of temper are rare and he is genrally as controlled as a Chiss, but they have a certain value to Ar'alani. She now knows some truly eloquent curses. "Two assholes working together is more dangerous than two non-assholes because assholes are unpredictable-"

Ar'alani pours two large shots of Massossian whiskey and waits it out.

"-utter and irredeemable dipshit- That's a new one. Ar'alani catalogs it.

"-thinks the sun shines out his ass and everyone should orbit-"

"Which one?" Ar'alani interrupts.

"Both!"

"So a binary system."

Eli snorts, then laughs. "Yeah, two big flaming balls of gas orbiting each other."

"If you think about it tactically, from the viewpoint of family politics, if they're busy orbiting each other, they can't make much trouble for anybody else." Ar'alani suggests as Eli flops down in the chair opposite her desk. "Formbi has a new toy, and Brier'lyro'nan has a new figurehead to follow who will keep him busy implementing grandiose plans."

"That could be a good thing or a bad thing. Stardust is a massive black hole for materials and funding even for the Empire. That thing will take almost fifty years to pay for itself." Eli looks at the glass on her desk in surprise, then picks it up for a meditative sip. "I'm angry because Thrawn sent him here for a reason - and now he's in bed with Chaf'orm'bintrano."

Ar'alani raises an eyebrow. "Also not a bad thing when the little head does the thinking."

Eli blazes with embarrassment. "No. Sorry, that's just an expression we use-"

"We have one very similar." She watches as the alcohol opens his capillaries. Fascinating. "I have no idea if Formbi beds other males, but it's likely that he does. You might have noticed that we are somewhat more flexible than humans."

It's so funny when he flails. "Er. Hm. It's… not my business, Admiral. But Formbi-"

"Formbi knows, because he opened his big mouth, that you're fluent in Cheunh and he will never live down the very public disgrace of your reply." Ar'alani clinks glasses with him. "I memorized every word for Thrawn. Normally he's not one for spoken word performance, but I know he'll appreciate this one."


	11. October 11: Challenge: Chaos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An Aristocra contemplates.

Chaos

He's back. 

Formbi is deeply cognizant of propriety and at the moment does not care. He swears, levying epithets, invective, and curses that should warp battleship hull plates. He breaks things for the satisfaction of shattering something. He is alone in his soundproofed private office and therefore has plausible deniability. Lying in the wreckage on a cave-wyrm silk rug in shades of gold and yellow, he stares up at the star-painted ceiling with his hair looking a fright. There is only one possible answer.

The universe hates him. 

Personally. 

He has to admit to glee when Thrawn was hauled off into the Chaos like an ancient-times sinner to hell - by a pod of space swimmers no less! Whatever slap in the face to the Ascendancy he was working on at the time was blown to bits with his Imperial warship. Now he's back, in one piece, and with another human - a Jedi this time.

Even the Chaos could not stand Thrawn and it spit him right back out into Formbi's lap!

And all Formbi can do is glare at the ceiling.

There has to be a way to turn this to his family's advantage without actually having to deal directly with Thrawn or the circus of humans in the Ascendency at his behest. How to do this? How to arrange, yet again, Mitth'raw'nuruodo's downfall? Preferably without dooming his family, himself, and his people. 

Even Formbi has to admit that it may not be possible.

Or at least not yet.


	12. October 12 Challenge: Victory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The price of victory, from Ar'alani's point of view.

Victory

Victory comes to those willing to pay its price. 

You can read the words, but until you have actually gone into battle you can't comprehend how high that price actually is. In Ar'alani's office, there sits a stack of communiques, each one with a name and a rank. 

This one will not come home. 

That one has lost limbs. 

Another one went too long without oxygen and may never wake.

Burns and decompressions, bodies broken by explosions, the beloved floating forever in space, the fighter that does not return. She has to sign all of them - for they were hers. 

"It is with deep and sincere regret that I inform you-"

This is victory - the loss of those who willingly placed their fragile bodies between the Ascendency and its enemies. It is the taste of bitterness and ashes as she sends their families the news. Tales of bloodless victories are for little children. Victories are built of flesh and blood, determination and will. There is only relief that - for now - their enemies are vanquished. There is a small measure of dearly-bought peace.


	13. October 13 Challenge: Loss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ar'alani has to tell Eli.

Loss

It feels as if he's trying to breathe around a blaster bolt to the chest.

Eli's vision swims and his knees buckle slightly before he firms them up. He must have heard Admiral Ar'alani wrong. That's it, surely.

"Are you sure? Not Thrawn." He's embarrassed that his voice is hoarse and shaking. "Ar'alani-"

"The telemetry was overwhelming. The fleet met its end over Lothal from a massive incursion of space-swimmers." Ar'alani's voice is more full of pain than he's ever heard it. "The Chimaera was carried off. We have a last known trajectory, but that's all we have."

 _This is grief,_ Eli thinks as he's driven to his knees, hearing himself cry out, the breath leaving his lungs in a single wail. _How does anyone survive it?_

Eli is devastated to see Ar'alani weep silently next to him - she had been a friend to Thrawn when Eli was still riding a tricycle. Grief and loss is like drowning and burning, suffocating and exploding with the memories in his head. Ar'alani pulls him into her arms, rocking him like a little child. Eli's fingers dig into her tunic.

Thrawn can't be gone. He can't be. Not like this.


	14. October 14 Challenge: Music

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "What do we do?"
> 
> "Just sit and listen to the music."
> 
> This is obviously a foreign concept to Thrawn. "Just that."
> 
> "You can close your eyes and listen, too. You can often hear the nuances of the music better."
> 
> "As you say, Eli Vanto."

Music

Thrawn does not get holostories or hologames, or at least not the ones that come out of Coruscant. He is adamant that the plots are facile and transparent, and people simply do not walk into a room with music following their every step - could you imagine the cacophony if they did? The games are not much better, again full of thin plots and inaccurate physics in addition to misplaced musical flares.

"It's not so much that they have music following them around, it's that the music is supposed to make you feel a certain way about what you're seeing on screen." Eli reasoned with him. "It supplies cues for your emotions to latch onto."

Thrawn is not emotionless, it's just that his emotions do not run the way that a human's would - the triggers and common cultural referents are just not there. 

"So the music is meant to substitute for grossly inadequate narrative and inconsistent plots, Eli Vanto?"

Eli sighed. "I'll tell you what. We have a few days leave before we're assigned. I'll line up some of my favorite composers - Soule, Zimmer, Bergersen, and Djawadi - and you get to listen to them with me. Deal?"

Music is not visual, Thrawn explains. Some of it is pleasant to listen to, other times it's background noise, and the rest of the time it just interrupts his focus. "I am not sure what this ought to accomplish, Eli, but I will listen. Deal."

Eli chooses his playlist carefully, picking some of the most emotional tracks that he's heard from among his hours of favorites. He wants to avoid the most dramatic music, the stuff that hammers you over the head, and concentrate only on music that the listener could read something into. Eli also has the suspicion that like Chiss eyesight, the auditory range might extend to ranges that were just outside of human hearing. Nobody likes an icepick or roundhouse punch to the eardrum.

Eli's Playlist:

  * Soule: [ Solitude ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Zvv3n89UbI&ab_channel=Ladozine) ( [ Extended version ](https://youtu.be/6HZdlZXlXUs))
  * Soule: [ Kyne's Peace ](https://youtu.be/KSujx7MNhyQ) ( [ Extended version ](https://youtu.be/6HZdlZXlXUs))
  * Djawadi: [ The Light of the Seven ](https://youtu.be/pS-gbqbVd8c) ( [ Extended version ](https://youtu.be/dBZk4L0bYaU))
  * Djawadi: [ The Last of the Starks ](https://youtu.be/UFai_8BS0Us)
  * Bergersen: [ So Small ](https://youtu.be/NEpNZJJDPZE)
  * Bergersen: [ Secret Melody ](https://youtu.be/AfMV4ZC4AnA)
  * Zimmer: [ Elysium/Honor Him/Now We Are Free ](https://youtu.be/tXZXLmzyKkw)
  * Zimmer: [ A Way of Life ](https://youtu.be/EUYpKwgqi1M) ( [ Extended version ](https://youtu.be/IrtEYLfo55M))



Their lodgings are a modest BOQ standard apartment, befitting a lieutenant and ensign, but Eli put some credits into his gaming rig. The sound is as good as a custom built system - and the neighbors have complained twice when raids on Galaxy of Warfare or Night Forts went overlong into the small hours. When he and Thrawn take the couch after dinner, Thrawn still looks very skeptical. 

"Will we need the headphones?"

"No, I didn't pick any ear-blasters for this." 

"What do we do?"

"Just sit and listen to the music."

This is obviously a foreign concept to Thrawn. "Just that."

"You can close your eyes and listen, too. You can often hear the nuances of the music better."

"As you say, Eli Vanto." 

Eli can tell that 'Secret Melody' and 'So Small' are not hitting the right - or any - buttons, then gives into his own advice and closes his eyes as the music plays. Maybe the Chiss are so different in culture that this whole thing is a big miss. Bergersen seems to be a wash, but Djawadi is next - and while 'The Last of the Starks' is another swish, something shifts when 'The Light of the Seven' comes up. Eli can't say what it is, his eyes still closed, but the change is palpable.

It's a masterpiece, honestly. The holoseries pissed him off a dozen times, but the score itself was masterful, evocative. The piece created tension, but did it with the delicacy of a web-stinger, note by note and strand by strand to build an intricate whole. From the simple _pyan_ notes of the opening to the dire notes of the tri- _pyan_ and _soello_ , then back to the softly falling notes only to build tension again. Eli had spent the whole of the scene yelling "Run, you idiots!" at the characters. A peek at Thrawn shows him with chin on fist, listening intently - but the higher notes seem to grate.

All right, next one. 

Zimmer's suite of music from the historical costume holodrama seems to make Thrawn relax and pay attention. The vocals are less intrusive, allowing the music to carry a narrative that absent any visuals is uplifting, freeing. However, it is a piece from 'The Last Swordsman' that finally, finally holds him in place. The subtle strings and flute still his fidgets, even with the higher strings sweeping in, and Eli feels him settle into the couch. 'A Way of Life' might be applicable to Thrawn - a being who seems to have dedicated his life to warfare and a code of honor, a true dedication to protecting his people, even at the cost of exile.

But Soule. 

Perhaps there was some cultural tab that Soule plugged into with Thrawn that the others missed. 'The Elder Scrolls' is one of Eli's favorite games - absent the appalling dialogue. 'Solitude' had some of the elements that seemed to cause Thrawn to tune out, but the silence and concentration that seemed to thrum in the air of the cheap BOQ apartment. When 'Kyne's Peace' rolls in on the fading notes from 'Solitude' Eli knows that he's got him.

When he opens his eyes, he does not find Thrawn with eyes closed in reverie. He finds Thrawn in that cross-legged position of feet on thighs that makes Eli's hip joints hurt - and looking right at him.

"I think, Eli Vanto, that I see now."

And for entirely suspect reasons, Eli can feel his blood flow bifurcate. This was not actually intended to be a seduction, he tells himself, but being the target of Thrawn's intent stare and a mildly heightened blue coloration, Eli thinks he might have… accidentally… and… maybe that's not a bad thing?

"I see now. The artistry in music is equal parts the composition itself and how the listener reacts to it." When Thrawn moves it's like watching a rocklands panther move on its prey. There is absolutely a correlation between that movement and Eli's tented trousers. "The emotional and physical response it evokes in you, the quickened pulse, the flow of blood, the variations in your scent." 

And there is no hiding the fact that he's severely turned on with Trawn gathering that kind of data, Thrawn's hands on Eli's thighs, moving higher. 

There's also no hiding the fact that Chiss males seem to have the equivalent primary sex characteristic mechanism as human males and it's one thing to see your roommate naked because the military is full of naked but it's one thing to see it and another thing to feel that muscle pressing you down into the couch and if Thrawn kisses him he doesn't know what he'll do-

Thrawn kisses him, full mouth, hungrily and with direct intent as Eli's arms pull him closer.

Eli is incorrect.

He knows exactly what he'll do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, in this universe there are holodramas and hologames and some bleedovers with our universe. Eli is a gamer, too.


	15. October 15 Challenge: Battle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Silently, she prepares her attack, calculating the odds of approaches, angles.

Battle

Ar'alani's foe is a worthy one. Cunning. Sly. Experienced. They are equals in their footing on the field. The battle ahead is critical - an inflection point that will decide other future conflicts. All of her experience, her knowledge, and her cunning will be needed in this fight. 

Silently, she prepares her attack, calculating the odds of approaches, angles.

Then the moment of action is upon her and Ar'alani moves decisively to gain the upper hand.

She grabs the trailing edge of the bedding and yanks it over her shivering body, whirling hard to the right and getting it under her as Thrawn flails his way awake.

"Mitth'raw'nuruodo - quit stealing all the blasted blankets!"


	16. October 16 Challenge: Distance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Un'hee stretches out into the Unseen.

Distance

Sometimes, in her trance, Un'hee would stretch out into the void around her. Taken at five to become a sky-walker, she had little to go on. She remembered her parents, her younger sister still in a sling on her mother's hip, her father's parents. How she could see light all around them and knew she was safe. Taken just when her abilities began to manifest, the past two years were more than a nightmare, and now she was 'safe' again.

Now, in the dark, tucked into her bed by Eli, she stretches out again. Lights move around her dimly, and she knows them to be Eli, Ar'alani, the crew of the  _ Steadfast _ . Some she touches fondly, savoring the warmth of their light before moving on. Now she stands on the skin of the ship - stars all around her as the Chaos ebbs and swells, churns and roars with the echoes of a long ago war.

She could go further now and not overload. 

Keeping herself anchored to  _ Steadfast _ , Un'hee stretches out further, into the Unseen. The Unseen is the part that was hard, moving in its own way, its own patterns. It's everywhere, in everything, and somewhere out there Un'hee hopes that her parents might hear her. If they could hear her, they could find her, no matter the distance. She is getting better at staying anchored, better at calling out into the Unseen. Someday, maybe a day very soon, they would answer her back.

"Mama! Papa! I'm here! I'm found! I'm safe! Can you hear me?"

The Unseen swirled around her, giving her no answers. Not today.


	17. October 17 Challenge: Warmth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In a sequel to 'Battle' - Ar'alani has a new approach.

Warmth

It's pleasant to share a bed, but old habits are hard to break. Thrawn, since he was Vurawn, rolls up in blankets. 

Tonight, on leave, Ar'alani has come with him to his favorite galleries, they've had a serious few bouts in the local dojo. Dinner, of course, and then Ar'alani seducing him. She is wonderfully creative, and her innovations rise to the level of art forms. It's interesting that her battle strategies seem to have no relation to her seduction strategies, nor any correlation to her wire sculptures that he can see. Maybe it's just that he's an active and cooperative party.  In truth, all Ar'alani would have to do is say, "Thrawn, kit off and get in my bed." However, she greatly enjoys seducing him and he appreciates her work and methods - as well as her very aesthetically pleasing self. 

And he does enjoy reciprocating the efforts - so much so that t hey have to remake the bed.

Twice, as there was an interruption in making it the first time. 

The thick blankets pile as deep as the width of Thrawn's palm, the Csillan winter in the deepest cold penetrating the thick walls and geothermal heating of the officers' planetside quarters in Csaplar. Even with a radiant floor and mass-converting heater, thick robes and lined footwear are needed. They leave the robes on their stands next to the bed, fleece house-shoes under the hems. Ar'alani lifts the blankets and indicates he should get in first.

Mystified, Thrawn does so. There have been battles for the blankets since they were junior and senior lieutenant, but Ar'alani's smile is indicative of deep enjoyment. 

"On your left side." 

He does so and she slides in behind him, fitting herself warmly to his back from the bend of the knee to the angle of the shoulder, wrapping one arm around his waist. It's pleasant, intimate, and warm. Her feet are freezing, and he rubs them with his own.

"I don't know if I can sleep like this, as pleasant as it is, on my side with you touching me."

Ar'alani puls him in more snugly, and he laces his fingers with hers. 

"Thrawn?"

"Yes?" 

Ar'alani turns off the light with a word, then presses her lips to the back of his neck and then whispers in his ear. "Learn." 


	18. October 18 Challenge: History

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "-and if he comes back from the dead, Ivant, we will throw him such a party."

History

"It's part of our history." Eli has a lapful of Velbb, but this is a serious cultural exchange. A small brush tickles his face, applying colors. "It was about remembering the Forever Cold and honoring the ones who perished. It also honors those who walked into the cold so that the survivors would have a better chance."

Velbb's face is painted in highlights and shadows like a skull, flowers painted across her bone-white colored forehead and cheeks. 

"But it's become a more general honoring of your ancestors?" Eli asks. "We have something like that where I'm from. We leave out food and drink for them on All Souls' Eve, some people will even lay out miniature banquets in the cinerariums for those whose lines have ended."

"More an honoring of sacrifice and duty." Velbb smiles, the skull-painting of her face making it unsettling. "We could do that, if you like."

His parents disowned him, Thrawn is in the uncertain state of being not-proven-dead and not-proven-alive, and Eli's left the Empire as surely as he'd left Lysatra. The Chiss of  _ Steadfast _ are all he has left to call family. "I have a few people I'd like to leave a remembrance for, yes. You'll have to show me how."

"We will, Ivant. We're all going together." 

The robe is white, lined with black fleece, and his image reflected in the polished metal of his wardrobe is startling. A skull with a garland of worlds on its brow, next to a skull with a garland of flowers. 

"This… is going to piss off some powers that be, isn't it?" Eli has had run-ins with the powers that be. Without the backing of Admiral Ar'alani and Supreme General Ba'kif (and a few well-placed body-slams), Eli would be roadkill. 

Velbb smiled. "He sacrificed his life for the Ascendency-" A finger across Eli's lips hushed his objections. "-and if he comes back from the dead, Ivant, we will throw him such a party."


	19. October 19 Challenge: Wildlife

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ba'kif is not having any of your shit today.

Wildlife

"When on duly authorized leave from a shakedown cruise, I expect you to observe the local wildlife - not  _ become _ the local wildlife."

Young officers. Ba'kif has seen a generation come and go, but they never fail to surprise him. The more intelligent they are, the more innovative the trouble that they manage. At the moment, orbiting one of the newer colonies, he has two full rows of four toeing the mark on his office floor. Ziara and Thrawn are very carefully and conspicuously in the back row, though to be fair they are senior and junior lieutenants and still a little shiny. 

He repeats the charges of the SP, some of which will rise to disciplinary boards for the more senior officers. 

"As senior officers, you are to be examples to junior officers and crew - and you will be made examples of. Dismissed." The company - now somewhat wilted - stiffens to attention and turns to go. Ba'kif watches as Ziara and Thrawn slide for the door, counting on camouflage in the exodus. "Senior Lieutenant Ziara and Junior Lieutenant Thrawn - an extra moment of your time."

Backs stiffen and they glance at each other before coming back to attention in front of Ba'kif's desk. Ba'kif lets a long silence settle on the pair until he can see them resisting the urge to study their boots like children. These two are going to need a little extra watching and cultivating - both far too smart for their own good at the age they are now.

"You both are said to be ardent students of stick fighting - several forms, in fact." He knows they are, and also knows that they are also keeping their sleeping arrangements off the ship. "I don't want to get out of practice, so you will both be joining me as sparring partners at the end of your watch for one hour. I've already changed the roster to accommodate this extra training. Dismissed."


	20. October 20 Challenge: Aristocra

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Diplomatic functions are a bore - unless you bring Wutroow.

Aristocra

Very simply, being a member of one of the Nine Ruling Families did not guarantee much of anything but a good table at a restaurant. While aristocra had influence, members of the Syndicure had actual power. Chiss politics, as in the Empire, was played as a contact sport - and at times as a blood sport. Eli was not certain until he met Admiral Ar'alani and then Supreme General Ba'kif just how the politically oblivious Thrawn survived. On Csilla, in the capitol of Csaplar, he also finds out that the aristocra are fairly predatory. In his career in the Empire, he's played harder games of smashball. However, since he's the alien here, he takes tremendous pleasure in watching Ar'alani and Ba'kif send pretentious sprats backpedaling out of targeting range. He even manages to insert his Outer Rim drawl into Cheunh, much to the snooty-boots' annoyance.

However, he does find allies in the colonial Great Families. Senior Commander Kiwu'tro'owmis and he bond over mathematics and data sciences, food from street vendors, and the dark red-brown bittersweet beer of her homeworld. They also manage to set some higher-level noses out of joint in the slaying of classically-pronounced Cheunh and inserting Basic into the pure language. Tonight they are at a diplomatic function that Eli tried to plead out of earlier. Eli's pleas went to no effect as Ar'alani threatened to personally stuff him into his dress uniform and drag him by his heels. If she was going to have to suffer, so was he. Eli is explaining some Lysatran variations of Basic, including the second-person plural pronoun as they stand at a distance from the main social circle. 

Wutroow is delighted. "Say it again!"

"Y'all." 

"Y'ahll." Ar'alani tries. 

"Blood-born girls always aspirate their consonants. It's their governesses' fault." Wutroow sniffs.

"Y'awl." Ba'kif tries as well. 

"It's not a glottal stop, it's a contraction." Eli explains.

"It's a very useful term. Yol. Yol." Wutroow tries again.

"It's an atrocity." 

"Ah, I thought spring had come at last in a blast of hot air. Instead it's you, Formbi." When Ar'alani wants to patrician it up, there's very few who can match her. 

"It's an alien language, and that one," he points to Eli "-and that one," pointing to Wutroow, "-both slaughter proper pronunciation. The colonial has an excuse, but the alien should be taught better." Without waiting to hear a response, and perhaps as a Syndic not accustomed to any backchat, Formbi turns on his heel and stalks off.

Wutroow actually chuckles. "Don't be troubled by Lute, Ivant. He's difficult to deal with even when he's in a good mood." 

"Lute?" Ar'alani asks. Raising her glass of sparkling wine at the same time Eli raises his.

Wutroow's eyes go wide and innocent while at the same time Eli swears he can smell brimstone ahead of her reply. She pitches her voice to carry and opens fire, "Yes, Admiral. I'm told it takes extensive and expert fingering to get any pleasant tone out of him at all."


	21. October 21 Challenge: Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eli's memories comfort and torment, but move him to action.

Memories

Memories, Eli finds, can be both anodyne and agonist. As anodyne, memories can soothe, comfort, enfold - but like a paralysis spider can sink one in a pleasant haze to one's death. As agonist, memories can push one to response and action - but also into going into a situation half-assed simply to be doing something. Eli's memories of Thrawn are delight, comfort, torment, and yearning all in one. 

_ Pinned to the couch in the BOQ having the hottest, dirtiest grind of his short but lately highly-eventful life. It's better than his first time because hot damn Thrawn knows what he's doing horizontally, too. Thrawn's mouth locked to his and Eli's arms around him and he's not going to be embarrassed about shooting off in his pants because it's going to be a relief such a relief to not have his attraction be one-sided. _

That one likes to attack him in the shower or first thing when he wakes up with a desperate hard-on and a pre-caf lack of self-control. Other memories are more mundane, quiet talks, brutal strategy games, valuable lessons that Thrawn etched into the fabric of who Eli was. Other lighthearted moments included explaining humans to Thrawn - who would largely not get it if it didn't include some kind of artwork. Sometimes he did this with the no-help-at-all help of Commodore Faro's fast mouth and hot temper. 

He missed her, too. 

Those memories spur him to look for Thrawn when the Syndicure would rather he not, but Ar'alani and Ba'kif are utterly willing to grant him a ship and navigator. He'd give anything to have Thrawn back, even just for a day, to tell him how much everything Thrawn was meant to Eli. 

"Commander Vanto?"

"Yes, Un'hee?"

"That moon, there. Someone calling himself Ez'ra wants me to tell you to hurry up."

Eli stares for a moment. Ezra Bridger. "How is he saying that, Un'hee? I haven't heard a hail."

Un'hee closes her eyes again, reopening them a few seconds later. "He said the space-swimmers left them here, and Blueface… Thrawn is being insufferable about you being here."

Eli stands there for a moment, memories crashing in his head before he takes the helm next to her. "Tell him that we'll be in the atmosphere in five minutes. Have them send up a flare."

He gets the chance to add another memory, and that is the best memory of all.


	22. October 22 Challenge: Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eli's awake. Awake and happy instead of awake and worried or awake and depressed or awake and exhausted. He's awake and watching Ar'alani and Thrawn sleep.

Family

Eli's awake. Awake and happy instead of awake and worried or awake and depressed or awake and exhausted. He's awake and watching Ar'alani and Thrawn sleep. Surprisingly - though in a few ways not surprisingly - Ar'alani is the big spoon with Thrawn held quite firmly lest he steal all the blankets. Also surprisingly, he is watching them sleep from the left side of Ar'alani's bed. 

It's been a wild, wild month in which they managed the following.

  1. Rescued Thrawn and the rebel from a planet not too far out in the Chaos - in a Purrgil spawning ground. The _Steadfast_ having been found by a Purrgil and forcibly towed there. 
  2. Made the trip back to Csilla, where Thrawn was summarily booted out by the Mitth and then rocketed across town and booted into the Admiralty with Ar'alani and Ba'kif right there as he was formalized as Raw'nuruodo.
  3. Eli was snagged by the collar of his black uniform and went from being Eli'van'to to being Van'to and an argument between Ar'alani and Ba'kif as to whether he was a brigadier or commodore.
  4. Thrawn advised him to stay out of the argument. As usual, he was right. 
  5. The Kivu were pissed at the Mitth and for a colonial family managed to kick the Mitth in the slats hard, then try to reel Thrawn back in. 
  6. The Mitth retracted the un-adoption in the face of even the other ruling families calling them asshats, and then the field and flag ranks weighed in - however he and Thrawn slept through that one. It did not go well for the Mitth and led to a number of defections.
  7. Bridger tried to escape the Steadfast and after a 'meeting' with Ar'alani, asked both himself and Thrawn if anyone ever said no to her. Thrawn said not if they have an iota of self-preservation and Eli added, "Or common sense."
  8. A minor civil war among the Nine. 
  9. A coup among the Nine.
  10. A colonial uprising against the coup.
  11. The Admiralty getting tired of this dumbassery and knuckleheadedness and booming down on everyone. 
  12. Akosha Tano and Sabine Wren showing up to reclaim Ezra Bridger and the two of them meeting with Ar'alani - results inconclusive. 
  13. Ezra Bridger becoming instructor to the Navigators - and having the whole ship complain about his name. He is finally called Ez'ra'bridger. 



And maybe, just maybe they can get some peace before the next crisis.

Or before Thrawn's feet steal the blankets from Eli's side. Which they are doing right now. 

It's good to know some things never change.

Eli turns on his left side, backing into the spoon of his former commanding officer who is spooned up against his current commanding officer and puts the journal into the niche on the headboard. Thrawn does not truly wake, but his arm loops over Eli's waist and pulls him closer, nuzzling the back of his neck. 

It's good to have Thrawn back. Eli missed him body and soul.

Ar'alani reaches over Thrawn and ruffles his hair. "Eli. Go to sleep. More disasters and crises tomorrow."

"Yes'm."

It's good to have a family. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fanfic makes it better. We might have to wait for the book, but I can have a little wishful thinking, right?


	23. October 23 Challenge: Rivals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I have always said that the Chiss ruling families are the Medici in space.

Rivals

Ziara is still a senior cadet when it hits her. It's not that Thrawn is politically stupid, it's that he's as aware of politics as a pusheen-tyom is aware of higher degree polynomial functions. He approaches politics as he would art or strategy and it's neither. Politics, as played out among the Nine, is a blood sport. Thrawn is likely to wander into a gerlag-pit and get himself chewed to death not as the main event, but a clueless bystander. Ziara took in politics with her mother's milk as the product of a rare alliance marriage between Irizi and Kiwu. She's played the game in her own way since starting primary schooling - where Thrawn has been analyzing the tableware. 

So, it makes sense to her to remove any political obstacles from his path. He's never going to trip over them, or even know if they were there in the first place. Moreover, his rivals will be unlikely to know that she's engineered said removals. The first to go is one of the Chaf - a year ahead of her. While a perfectly adequate student, she is also paying a merit-adoptive to do her coursework. While she's at it, Ziara considers those who are obviously just here for a political buff-up before working their way into the Syndicure. 

And those are the ones with ambition - others are here because it's what their family does and not what they actually want to do. Ziara safeguards their future happiness - and the lives of the people who would have to serve with them - by making sure that their failings are brought to the attention of the council by those some degrees away from her and Thrawn. Yet others are dangerous, and in the grand tradition of her mother's side, Ziara makes a harmless use of certain toxins. 

It's NOT poisoning - nobody dies.

They just wish that they would. 

The results are an experiment in aversive conditioning. They were taught about that in Operations Psychology. This is just a field test. 

As Ziara ascends to Midshipman-Ensign, she resolves to pull some strings to get Thrawn placed with her. She can keep an eye on him, and on anyone who might trifle with him. He's going to be very important to the Ascendency one day - if he lives.

Ziara will work to the best of her ability to make sure that he does.


	24. October 24 Challenge: Peace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Is a kick to the buttocks with a frozen boot supposed to bring enlightenment, Eli Vanto?" Thrawn is always curious about human idiom, slang, and colloquialism. "I would think that a boot to the head would be more productive."

Peace

Technically, what they have now is peace, as in there's no open warfare for the moment. Peace on the Chimera means boring routine patrols, boring reports, boring watches, sleeping through your off shift, and being able to read and have a cup of caf in relative peace. Peace is what the people want, to go on about their lives unaffected, unthinking, and with maximum convenience. Thrawn is of the mind that the people need - as Eli has said - a swift kick to the buttocks with a frozen boot. 

And after dealing with a cranky Moff wanting to 'borrow' the Chimera and her battle group, Thrawn has said exactly that. Thrawn on a tear in Basic reminds Eli that despite outward assimilation, Thrawn is not a blue-skinned human. He's Chiss and possibly obsessed with trying to figure out humans and the chaotic mess they often make of their lives. 

"Is a kick to the buttocks with a frozen boot supposed to bring enlightenment, Eli Vanto?" Thrawn is always curious about human idiom, slang, and colloquialism. "I would think that a boot to the head would be more productive."

Eli puts down his reading and drawls with a wide smile, "Well, in that most folks seem to have the brains of a nerf, I suppose it might make something rattle around." He picks up his caf and sets down his reader. "Where I'm from, a kick in the ass with a frozen boot was supposed to get you up and moving on the theory that nothing worse can happen to you all day."

"Humans are entirely too fixated on buttocks." 

The caf is fortunately not too hot as it comes out of Eli's nose and down the front of his tunic. "What? Say again?" Eli chokes out. That came out of nowhere, which probably meant Thrawn had been ruminating on the subject for a year or so. 

"You humans use the buttocks - or ass - as an extension of the self. One butts out, and one butts in. One's ass is on the line, over the line, then there's getting one's ass to the back of the line or back into line." Thrawn is enumerating, counting off on his fingers and Eli is trying desperately not to laugh. "You can drag ass, haul ass, get one's ass over/in/out of wherever one is, get one's ass in gear, and go ass over teakettle." 

Come to think of it, that last bit's a fair description of Eli's entire life. He puts his face in his hands, snickering madly. 

"You really need to explain that last one to me, Eli. I can picture it, but I can't understand it." Thrawn then continues with, "One may bust one's ass, tell people to get off one's ass, get on someone else's ass, get knocked on one's ass, and apparently one shows one's ass when being particularly awkward or intractable."

Eli laughs openly, helplessly, tears streaming from his eyes. Thrawn is trying to kill him. He rolls from the couch to the deck and blessed stars Thrawn saying 'ass'...

"One works one's ass off, bets one's sweet ass, makes an ass of oneself, and apparently - though I can't imagine how - one may manage to talk out of one's ass. One opens a can of whoop-ass, beats ass, gets things ass-backwards, gets or gives an ass-chewing, and then there's having or being a pain in the ass. Then there is the physiologically impossible condition for humans of having one's head up one's ass - this being presumable hyperbole." 

Eli makes it across the floor to the deep reading chair where Thrawn is sitting, book in hand and carefully marked with sticky notes in Chiss script. 

"There are the operational statuses of kicking ass and taking names, pulling wildly unlikely things out of one's ass, and knowing one's ass from a hole in the ground." He offers a hand up and Eli takes it, managing to take it and establish a beachhead on Thrawn's thighs. "Then there are times when people are riding one's ass or one has one's ass in a sling, which is not a pleasant association despite sexual connotations. One may tell another party to kiss one's ass - or as I have heard you do, to kiss your entire ass and make it an all-day job."

Oops. While he had never knowingly said that in Thrawn's hearing, he heard it anyway. 

"So, as I say, Eli Vanto - humans are obsessed with buttocks."

It takes Eli a very long time to get himself under control, giggling like mad on his commanding officer's shoulder. During which Thrawn continues his tactile fascination with Eli's hair - which he regards as an entity that refuses all order. 

"Here, Mitth'raw'nuruodo, is my last word on 'ass.' You have made it so that I will never again hear that word without laughing my fool ass off." Eli sits up straight and hooks his fingers in Thrawn's belt. "You may grab my ass, play with my ass, smack my ass and otherwise do as you please with my ass or I will bother your ass until your ass doesn't know which way is up."

Thrawn's hands obligingly land on Eli's ass, giving an appreciative squeeze and pat. "So you are saying, Eli Vanto, that you want me all over your ass. Furthermore, you bothering my ass will result in my being on your ass until such time as you chill your ass out." 

Bless the man. When he gets it he gets it. "Bed's too far away, Thrawn. Deck's good." Eli nuzzles his ear. "Hurry. Peace never lasts."


	25. October 25 Challenge: Survival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cadet-Midshipman Thrawn's survival test goes wrong. Ba'kif and Ja'fosk need to bend the rules a little to get him back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be a 100-word drabble. It clocks in at 3600+ words. Blame those two. Some whump in this one.

Survival

The Taharim Academy likes to play tricks on its cadets. The survival test is one one such. The student in question is knocked out and bundled out of their bunk and into a standard escape pod. The pod is ejected and the cadet has a month to survive on a planet with only the standard equipment and rations therein. Of course, if one is in enough trouble, the locator beacon can be activated and the student rescued - then given a choice of repeating the exercise before final exams or leaving the academy. 

Some completed the exercise simply by staying in the pod, subsisting on rations until such time as the pickup was made. After all, that was survival in the strictest sense of the word.

Some… well. 

Some are Thrawn.

Actually, only one is Thrawn and thank every single ancestor for that because more of him might simply analyze the universe, then split it apart to see how it works.

"What do you mean you can't find him?" 

"Exactly that. He's just not there." Supreme Admiral Ja'fosk normally has control of his facial expressions, but right now he could spit rivets. "We've been looking for two weeks." 

Ziara, now a Junior Lieutenant, keeps her mouth shut tight around the high-rankers. She suspects that 1) the proctors of the test didn't look too hard and b) worked on finding a world that might be adverse enough to make Thrawn quit. 

"And you want my shiny-new lieutenant to do what about that?" Supreme General Ba'kif scoffs.

Admiral Ja'fosk clears his throat. "Technically she is  _ my _ shiny-new lieutenant, and we need the Thrawn whisperer."

Ziara chokes back a laugh. _I'm the what, now?_

Ba'kif just stares at the man and then throws up his hands. "You have lost your mind." 

Ja'fosk glares back. "The Mitth are asking questions. They are quick to sense a blood trail, and that trail leads right to the academy. Ziara knows him, he knows her, and she might be able to extract him without laying on a full operation."

"And the Irizi would pitch an utter fit about you throwing one of their precious blood-daughters after him." Ba'kif counters. "Much less that he's a Mitth and a merit-adoptive." 

Ziara can see a little gleam of warrior's fortune and pounces on it. "And you need to avoid the loss of face over losing a senior lead cadet, much less the wrath of the Nine. I am perfectly willing to go find him - for a small consideration in return for my discretion."

Both men stare at her as she stands at ease. 

"You would extort your supreme officers in pursuit of personal gain-" Ja'fosk raises his voice and Ziara raises her hand. 

"It is not for me. It is for another."

"Then speak, Irizi'ar'alani." Ba'kif is as forbidding as a stone idol, leaning on her name rather than her rank. 

"Let Thrawn sit the exams and become an ensign-midshipman. Get him out of the academy and into commission. He's top of his class in any case - six more months will make no difference." 

Ziara maintains her neutral stance with difficulty as the men in front of her seem to hold an entire conversation by means of facial expressions. They are both honorable men, she knows that, but when it comes to Thrawn - well, someone has to kick the shins and step on the toes.

"If he has survived." Ja'fosk rumbles.

"If you did not believe that he was alive, you would not have hauled me off the  _ Nightshrike _ in the middle of my watch." Ziara points out. "I will bring him back which will settle the Mitth and keep the Syndicure from sticking their political noses where they don't belong."

Which they will anyway, but not as much with their merit-adoptive back in his pen. 

Ba'kif looks at her sternly and chides, "You are not Ar'alani yet, Junior Lieutenant. We'll supply you with a patrol craft and information about the planet he was dropped on. Then upon your return, we discuss your next posting at length."

Which is why, three days later, Ziara is now homing in on Vretal with the  _ Lancer _ . It's a world where intelligent life either never evolved or left long ago. No significant natural resources, and though near enough to Thearterra, it's still well out of the way even if one does not need a Sky-Walker to reach it. It's a 'why bother' on the map of worlds within the Ascendency - so why is Thrawn there?

The trajectory of the survival pod is in her targeting computer, and she follows it in. It's not bad. Forests, and lakes, vast oceans, and… the trajectory ends in a massive, glacial lake. A fast and slightly panicked ping of the lake bottom shows no pod resting there, and when she zips to the bottom of the falls, there's no wreckage there, either. What there is, ten minutes downriver at reconnaissance level, is an arrangement of rocks on the shore in the universal symbol of a near-human's four fingers and thumb - the thumb and all but the middle finger folded down.

They gave him a rough ride, and Thrawn is not happy about it.

However, Ziara is willing to bet that the direction of the finger is also the direction of Thrawn - this is a flood plain, and he wouldn't be dumb enough to stay here. Skimming the treetops she considers where she would have tucked herself away for her test. Fresh water supply, safe place to sleep, possible gleaning for fruit and veg, possible hunting or fishing. If a cosseted-from-the-zygote Aristocra girl can manage a survival test on an airless moon, a colonial boy should find it a snap in what must be similar to his original surroundings. 

~

Twelve hours later with night falling, Ziara is ready to murder Thrawn, Ba'kif, and Ja'fosk. There are no ground traces of Thrawn at all. Not a cookfire, trap, fishing spot - not a damned thing. Ziara has gotten out and walked various sites that would be logical places to camp and wait it out for nothing. She has tried every comm band that he could be expected to monitor to no avail. Thankfully there is no sign of large predators, and equally comforting no bleached bones that could belong to Thrawn - who she would cheerfully throttle right now. 

Checking the chronometer on her console, Ziara contemplates a night spent here still uncertain of Thrawn's survival. She has thirty minutes before full dark. It might be an idiotic idea, but it's the only one she has. Thrawn might be aware of someone being here to look for him, but…

But he might have no idea that it's a friend.

The idea forms in a second and Ziara powers up the ship, rising on repulsors above the treetops. Thrawn had confided his born-name to her, an act of surprising intimacy for a merit-adoptive who was supposed to forget his family. He must have loved them to hold it so close. Engaging the external speakers, she hopes that colonial mothers also use all of your name when they're calling you and preparing a lot of look out below. Ziara fills her lungs and then emulates her mother at the end of every single rope with her five offspring.

"KIVU'RAW'NURUODO! WHERE IN EVERY LEVEL OF HELL ARE YOU?"

Then she waits, scanning for a flare or some other sign that he's within the four klick range of the external speakers. A light weakly beams out of the falling dark, flashing at her and she moves slowly toward it over a three-klick distance. 

Thrawn.

Up a tree.

With a flashlight.

The band of dread around her chest shatters and she is simultaneously relieved that he lives and is absolutely torched at him. 

~

When someone uses your entire name, it is either a formal occasion or one is about to be told many unpleasant things about oneself. When someone uses a name that was changed years ago, one confided to a friend, it's that friend looking for you and might or might not indicate an incoming torching. Logically, the academy had the resources to spare to look for him, but possibly might not wish to admit that they'd lost him in the first place. Therefore, it was entirely logical that they would send Ziara - his friend. 

The ship is a four-soldier patrol boat, but there is only one silhouette in the cockpit. She might have three others with her - including two MP officers to arrest him, but Ziara has  _ joss't _ his logic on numerous occasions. Thrawn slides down the network of vines to the forest floor and walks to the clearing to find Ziara standing at the foot of the ramp, arms crossed and eyes glowing in the terminating twilight. 

He stiffens to attention and then, to the complete  _ joss'ng _ of his expectations, Ziara simultaneously yells at (expected) and then… embraces? Him? Previous physical intimacy does not automatically translate to further signs of- Ah, now she is telling Thrawn about himself, but again she  _ joss'es _ his expectations with a "-and what the hell did they do to you?"

Ziara has not let go of him, and for some reason he has an arm around her waist - she is not removing his arm from her, nor indeed, removing his arm from  _ him _ . He might not be dead by sunrise. 

"Is this to be a formal debriefing?" 

Ziara stares at his neck and raises her gaze meaningfully. "No. Not until I can figure out how to run this with Ba'kif and Ja'fosk."

That's surprising. "They sent you after me?"

Ziara's lips twitch into a brief smile. "They… mostly Ja'fosk… are trying to avoid Mitth wrath over losing you in the first place. How long have you known that I was here?"

"I did not know it was you until a few minutes ago, and since morning." She is now feeling his ribs, sniffing at him, and muttering under her breath. "I assure you, after the concussion stabilized, I was quite well." 

Now Ziara unwinds from him, takes his upper arm in a firm grip, and marches him up the boarding ramp. He did tell her about the concussion, but not about the ribs, shoulder, and collarbone… "And some contusions. Small ones. Healed quickly."

Opening the scanner bed, Ziara offers him a two for one concussion if he doesn't kit off, pipe down, and lie down. "Yes, Junior Lieutenant." Blood-born Aristocra. He imagines that he'll be saying, "Yes, Admiral!" to her one day.

The scanner moves from head to feet and back, and Ziara gives him a look. He has no idea what it means. 

"Healing bleeds below the periosteum on your left collarbone; and left ribs nine, eight, and seven; healing contusion left kidney. Concussion confirmed - acceleration/deceleration and direct impact types. Did you use the medkit in the pod?"

"Yes, standard protocols for brain injuries." Thrawn relaxes. "The contusions are from the failure of the left shoulder of the harness on entry."

"I'm going to pull the flight recorder and the occupant recorder, then. Where's the pod?" Ziara sounds abstracted, her tactical mind already fully invested in her attack.

"A half-klick from here." He pauses as her hand comes to rest on his chest. He should not like that as much as he does in the way that he does - it's inappropriate at the moment. "Up a tree." 

Ziara closes her eyes and sighs. "We'll go in the morning."

~

They do go on the morning, a short hike through the trees to where a survival pod hangs a good four-and-a-half meters up in the cradling branches of an ancient tree. 

Ziara asks one question, "How?" 

Thrawn tells her that he rolled the pod off the floodplain with a lever and fulcrum when the water rose, and hoisted it into the tree with a net of vines and a primitive pulley. Just from where she's standing, she can see the massive dent in the hull and a crack that would have admitted water while in the river. Someone is going to get what's coming to them, and Ziara will personally load the tube for it.

"We're going to get the nets around it, then I'll go get the  _ Lancer _ and we'll take it with us. It's evidence, Thrawn." Whether of malice or negligence remained to be seen. "We'll do a vacuum purge before we leave orbit, just to make sure none of the local beasties come with us."

It is, of course, easier said than done, but the pod is eventually carried with net and grapplers to the clearing and Ziara spends the later part of the morning wedged under the bench seat. Thrawn has too much shoulder to wedge in so he simply passes her the requested tools and listens to her spates of cursing. Her governess would have washed her mouth out with soap, honestly.  Finally admitting defeat when she discovers part of the frame dented inward - preventing the removal of the flight and internal recording vaults - she and Thrawn remove the dented outer panel and recover them that way. The crack in the hatch admitted enough water to render flares and rations useless, the communications gear even after being dried out is still inoperative. However…

"Four uniforms, Thrawn. How?"

The reply is 100% Thrawn. "I knew they were going to give me the survival test, so when I went to sleep, I wore all of my clothing." 

"Of course you did."

The in-flight recorder gives the technical information Ziara needed to prove malice. There were many other sites more appropriate, but his test proctors spat him out in the middle of a lake miles from shore and upstream from a 25 meter high waterfall. The recording of the pod's interior makes her itch to deliver utter ruin to the parties responsible. She watches a barely conscious Thrawn thrown around like a child's rag doll, then lie unconscious in the rising water from the damaged hatch. The padding from four uniforms saved him from broken bones, but the cranial injury and the compromised pod could have killed him.

Hammering down the anger takes the time until Thrawn returns from a hunt, and the smell of roasting meat makes her stomach growl. She hasn't had fresh food since her graduation dinner, the _Nightshrike_ runs on mealpacks, and the scent is making her mouth water. Ziara carefully locks up the recorders and goes to join him where he squats next to a small, hot fire. 

"Bless." Ziara says reverently as he passes her some sort of meat on a stick and wedges of a sticky green fruit cracked out of a spiky shell. "Real food. How did you learn to catch it?"

"I'm a colony child, remember? If we didn't catch our meals, there were days we didn't eat."

It's easy to forget that Thrawn's original accent contained a colonial burr, and that he'd worked diligently to copy Cspalar-proper accents and usage. "It's done you well. You don't look half-starved the way most do after a month of rations. Moreover, you must have a private bathing-house stashed away somewhere - unless you're bathing in cold water."

"I'm not that much of a stoic, Ziara." He protests. "There's a tiered limestone hot spring a klick north of here."

Ziara can't answer right away as her mouth is full of medium-rare delicious red meat that makes her moan a little in appreciation. And don't his ears register a slight infrared change, too. She swallows.

"You know I love mineral springs."

The corners of his mouth tip up. "I do."

"When we finish eating, we're going. Do you know how long it's been since I had a proper bath?" Right after her graduation dinner. "How hot?"

"44 at the source, 32 in the next pool down, then 21 at the very bottom where another spring comes in." 

A bath. Meat for dinner. Ziara looks him over. Maybe Thrawn for dessert.

~

He above all does not wish to presume. 

Leading Ziara to the springs, he keeps himself focused on the sensations of fed and clean. Though they have been sexually intimate several times, he has no wish to impose himself on someone who… well… gets him. That connection is priceless, weighed against sexual needs. 

But it is not so say that she's not beautiful. The Chiss have a long history of erotic art, often supported and patronized by many respectable families. Ziara reminds him of a Dero'mina'stav bronze or a painting by Riova'nito'cass. 

He can tell that the thermal falls please her and they kit off near the bottom pool and walk up. Bodies are bodies, and one sees a lot of them at the academy - but perhaps because he so appreciates the person inside of it, Ziara's form holds deep attraction for him. The pool is hot enough to hammer down the physical evidence of said attraction, even when she slides in with a sound of happy pleasure. 

Which is also a sound she makes right before orgasm. 

His brain is being unhelpful.

The heat soaks into him, and as Chiss will do, he goes into a comfortable torpor, watching Ziara through half-lidded eyes as she goes nearly limp. 

"Mm." She says.

"Mhm." He replies.

The next pool down is comfortable and blood-warm, and he shows her how to get into it by simply falling straight down into it four meters below. She does, and then swims right to him and settles on his thighs, face to face. He might have been a little too reserved, and there is very simply no way to hide the physiological evidence of his desire. Ziara doesn't seem to mind, not with the way she's pressing against him, and Thrawn has to close his eyes for a moment to think about  second order linear homogeneous differential equations. The equations are blown to flinders when she kisses him. His arms go around her and he deepens the kiss as her lips open for him.

"Long?" She asks when they break, her voice dropping low and warm.

"A year." He tilts his head, considering. "A little longer. Since Long Night."

~

Ziara grinds him, just to see the bliss flicker across Thrawn' face. "Since we were together last Long Night?" The words, 'Show me what you like to do with yourself' got a frequent replay in her bunk. 

He nods, hands at her waist, then on her backside.

"What have you been doing with yourself?" Ziara scolds, breath catching as his  _ ftah _ rubs against her engorged  _ ysah _ . "Seriously. There's people out there willing to fall madly in bed with you, Thrawn."

His lips are on her neck and it's so hard to breathe much less think when you want someone this badly, but his answer makes her laugh as he slides into her. "I have foursomes - my left hand, my right hand, a bottle of lotion, and me."

Then there's nothing but clasping around him, unable to get enough of him into her, and a spiralling hunger as she strives to give them both release. Goodgoodsogood and more as her head falls back, her back arching as he takes over, everything in her senses centered on where they are joined. Release smashes through her like a storm, making her lose all thought other than urging him on. 

After, drifting in blood-warm water, he still has his arms around her. 

"You never answered my question." Ziara prods him on a known tickle spot. "You don't have to act like every night is Long Night, but-"

"Bodies are easy, Ziara, but they mean nothing to me. It's the person inside the body that… I connect with." He looks away, a strip of deep blue on his cheeks. "Without that connection, that intimacy of shared thought, I…" Thrawn shrugs. "It's like eating a synth bar. It takes care of hunger, but not of appetite - and a friend is so much more than that."

People of her family's rank had little in the way of friends. So many of the 'friends' came with agendas, wants, needs, and an armory of subterfuges to get them. A friend, a true one, was as rare as blood diamonds. Thrawn would be a true and faithful friend, a brilliant strategist, and he had proven those things. She would be his friend, handle the politics and the false faces, and have his back. And friendship benefits were good, too. Her body was coming to associate that deeply satisfied feeling with Thrawn. Ziara laid her head on his shoulder and let herself drift.

~

Ba'kif looked them over. Ensign-Midshipman Thrawn and Junior Lieutenant Ziara.

The evidence was there, irrefutable, and consequential. Ja'fosk was as pissed off as Ba'kif had ever seen him. Someone deliberately tried to harm a cadet, and those responsible were facing court martial. Someone else had rescued him when experienced SAR units had failed. The Mitth were pacified, the Irizi were angry enough to spit rivets that their precious blood-daughter wouldn't give them a yea, nay, or go to hell. Now, both of the young officers in question stood at attention before him and Ja'fosk, their faces deliberately blank.

_ Let's see how long that lasts, children. _

Ja'fosk began, "Your testimony has been entered into the record, and the evidence gathered produced cooperation. In this, you have the thanks of the academy and of the supreme command."

"Ensign-Midshipman Thrawn, you've passed your exams," Ba'kif took over. Ja'fosk thought he was insane to do this. "And while you will graduate at the top of your class, you are to be assigned to the carrier  _ Guardian  _ before actual graduation _. _ " Ba'kif watched them process that, their eyes widening fractionally as they realized what had just been visited upon them. "My flagship, as you may already know. It will please me to see you at boarding, three days from now, at 0.00. Your orders are with my aide. Dismissed."


	26. October 26 Challenge: Friendship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The call it Ba'kif's swaddling song. Everyone else calls it "WHUMP."

Friendship

The  _ Guardian _ is a carrier, and while a capital ship and warship, it also has a vast number of people. One might think that lieutenants would be as common as bloodbugs on a  _ lyllip _ . They are, actually, but there's an old saying that the nail that sticks up gets the hammer. 

~

They call it Ba'kif's Swaddling Song.

WHACK! WHUMP!

"UHF-"

One of the two figures in white padding lands on its back hard enough to make the onlookers flinch, the  _ rthal _ stick rolling across the mat.

THUMP! WHUMP! WHAP!

"URK-" 

A combination to the midsection and back sets the other on its face, stick in a loose grip.

The large figure in heavy padding and a facemask sets the butt of its stick on the matt, leaning it on a shoulder to remove the facemask.

"And that, young Lieutenants, is how one defeats two determined  _ rthal _ assailants at once." Ba'kif says with great cheer. "Goodness, the academy has certainly become softer than it was in my day. All things considered, you didn't do too badly. No need to get up right away. We'll go over this all tomorrow."

"Y'sir." Groaned the figures on the mat. "Thank you, General Ba'kif."

The two shinies are probably thanking Ba'kif for not killing them.

Ba'kif - who as a cadet won every wrestling weight class contest he participated in - bows his way off the mat, walking away with his stick over one shoulder. The assailant who landed on its face rolls over and rests next to the one on its back. With much groaning, the two removea their facemasks to present Senior Lieutenant Kiara and Junior Lieutenant Thrawn, both soaked enough in sweat that they might have just stepped from a shower.

"Junior Lieutenant? Is he trying to kill us?"

"No, Senior Lieutenant, if he wanted to kill us we'd already be dead."

With more groaning and much cursing, they help each other off the floor and stumble for the showers.

"Wait."

"What?"

"He said 'tomorrow,' Ziara."

The senior lieutenant utters a scorching oath that would turn her father purple. 

It is the common opinion that Ba'kif has a special interest in the Mitth merit-adoptive and the Irizi blood-daughter - both top academy graduates and filched from under Ja'fosk's nose. Others think that Ja'fosk tossed the potential political grenade to his old friend and rival to get the Mitth and Irizi out of his hair. Still others intimate that it is basic boy meets girl - when said boy is unsuitable to the girl's family.

Ba'kif's interest, as he himself would tell anyone, is that the two top academy graduates do not get so full of their own brilliance that they end up dead or court martialed. Ziara has a tactical mind and a boldness that has served her well so far, and Thrawn has a keen mind that likes to pry things open and have a look. Between the pair, they'd already had a couple of tweaks at the collective nose of the Admiralty and the Syndicure, not to mention their families. Ba'kif's job is to make them into top-notch officers and allies - and to keep them out of other trouble - without wringing both their necks in exasperation.

~

They clean up and stumble back to their quarters on rapidly stiffening muscles. It's a typical junior officer's room - four bunks, four desks, four trunks, and a common area when you couldn't stand to be at your desk or in your bunk for another minute. Thrawn then makes his second mistake. 

He sits down on the couch. 

His first mistake was making assumptions about his commanding officer. Ba'kif's record warned him that the general had extensive wrestling experience, but _ rthal _ ,  _ mshendi _ ,  _ kurat _ , and  _ plendan _ are stick fighting forms that rely on speed and agility. He and Ziara are not  _ pusheen _ - _ pixi _ , but their training in martial arts has made them faster and more flexible. Ba'kif is - according to Ziara's gift for description - built like an ore hauler. He's older. They shouldn't go too hard on him. Thrawn, based upon the evidence, agreed.

Ba'kif wiped the floor with them in three rounds.

Not even three. 

It doesn't count as a round when you're breathless and flat on your back, asking yourself what just happened.

Ziara stands at the room's small food station, waiting for the pot to heat and watching in sympathy as Thrawn rolls himself off the couch and to all fours just to get up. "Bad?"

"It's going to be worse tomorrow after the muscles have time to really get angry with us." He moves to put away their gear, cleaned after they cleaned themselves up. "I did not expect that he'd be an expert stick forms fighter - it's not in his record - though I should have kept in mind that we don't just ossify upon graduation."

"I feel as if I am ossifying now." Ziara empties a packet of  _ xhai-csi _ into each mug and adds hot water. "He sent you into the air like a puffer flower." 

"Too bad I did not land like one. I didn't see what he did to you." 

"Sent me into the air, beat me like a child's natal day candy-dropper, and then I landed on my face." Ziara hands Thrawn his cup and then sinks into the couch. "I just realized that I might not be able to get back up." 

"... move over, it looks more comfortable than my bunk right now." 

"Hold my cup." Thrawn takes the cup while Ziara arranges the narrow couch for two long bodies. "You're broader than I am. Lie down here." 

Thrawn hands her back the cups and then eases down onto the couch. "You're right about ossifying. I'm surprised I'm not creaking." 

He makes himself as comfortable as possible for someone turning to stone and holds out a hand for his  _ xhai-csi _ . Ziara hands him both and then makes herself comfortable - on him. He hands her back her cup and she taps it against his. It's possible that they have never been too tired to talk, but the silence is comfortable between them. 

He watches Ziara's eyes fight not to close, takes her cup when it wobbles and sets it on the floor next to his, strokes her hair until her breathing evens into the deep, slow rhythm of sleep. He doesn't remember sleep overtaking him, only the pleasant weight of her, and the sound of her breathing, and a deep appreciation that she is his friend for reasons he still can't comprehend, but is grateful for nonetheless.


	27. October 27 Challenge: Warrior

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Admiral of the Eleventh fleet has new orders.

Warrior

Karyn answers the comm call on one of the most highly classified frequencies. As a flag officer, she is accustomed to seeing dark-channel communications, but not accustomed to them being for her. As the Admiral of the Eleventh Fleet, albeit one who's insignia and cylinders are still shiny, she is jumpy about them. Those communiques are almost always from Coruscant and they are almost always bad news. Keying up the channel, there is a visual and a rock of ice forms in her stomach. The incarnation of bad news waits on the other end of the transmission.

"Lord Vader."

"Admiral Faro. Observe."

The screen fills with a familiar sight - the curve of Lothal below the Chimaera. Until it isn't. It fills Purrgil and fire and death. Her crew, her shipmates, her friends, Thrawn - so many years, so many people who became pieces of her, ripped from life in seconds. For that, she would not tear her eyes away, even as her mind delivered the brutal details of what had happened to them. Only when the screen shows floating wreckage and spaceburned bodies starting to deorbit do the tears come, but they come silently with shrieks of rage and loss imprisoned in her chest.

Vader is back in view, watching her, judging from behind his mask and she does care if he does read minds - she'd happily kill him for what he just showed her. Instead, she asks, "Are there any survivors?"

"Few. The Harbinger survived, but badly damaged and with heavy casualties. Escape pods from the other ships. Perhaps 11,000 total."

"Nine Imperial _ I-class _ destroyers. Sixteen  _ Imperial II _ -class destroyers. Twelve  _ Arquitens _ and nine  _ Gozanti _ class cruisers." She names them and their commanding officers and seniors in her mind. The  _ Dominion _ , the  _ Reaver _ , the  _ Sunflare _ , the  _ Nightmare _ , the  _ Summons _ , the  _ Justiciar _ \- "Four  _ Interdictors _ , and two  _ Dreadnoughts _ . Not to mention five construction platforms on loan."

"Accurate." Is all Vader has to say. 

Thrawn said that you had to listen to what Vader didn't say even more than what he did say. What Vader just said was that he knew how many ships, how many of their people had died. 

"Purrgil. I've never seen a pod of more than five in my career." Grief can come later. It has to.

"Nor have I."

It hurts her physically to ask. She does not want any orders coming from him, but they're coming anyway so she might as well get out in front of them. "What are my orders, Lord Vader?"

"There is a last known trajectory. Transmitting now."

Listen more to what he doesn't say. He's sending you to look.

"Transmission received." 

"Many of the survivors are being transferred to the Eleventh, a large number of your current crew will be transferred out."

A loyal crew.

Vader thinks that somewhere out in the middle of the lunatic end of the galaxy, Thrawn is still alive - and he is sending Admiral Faro and the Eleventh to find him. Karyn considers her next words carefully, because once you say them-

"Yes, my Lord." The words do not burn her tongue.

"One last item, Admiral Faro."

"Yes, sir."

"Be the warrior he trained, not just the officer the Empire expects."

Oh. He's good. That makes her pull her shoulders back and raise her chin. It fucking hurts, but he's right.

"Thank you, my Lord."

The transmission ends, and Karyn stares at the blank screen before whispering almost in prayer, "Thrawn, dammit, don't you die out there."


	28. October 28 Challenge: Joy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thrawn has never actually experienced overwhelming emotion.

Joy

He could not say that he has ever experienced overwhelming emotion. 

Thrawn, through whatever influenced him be it genetic or experienced, is limited to muted emotions and small ranges. Perhaps this is to the good, allowing the development of his deductive mind. He has likes, dislikes, affections, antipathies, fond regards, and profound distastes. It's just the way he's made - and perhaps two or three people in the galaxy understand that. Over the past three years, he can't say that he's given up hope. Still, over time, he's aware of a… dilution of expectations. 

Bridger says that he's depressed. 

Which is nonsense.

He is simply adapting to a reality where almost all of the people under his command died, and both the Empire and the Ascendancy are on a hyperdrive-powered sled straight to hell driven by a Sith sorcerer and a band of spoiled children. Everything he's worked for over two decades has been blown to bits, he has lost the few people who understand him at all, and he's stranded on a world located in the 'physics for the criminally insane' asylum wing of the galaxy with someone who wants to talk about feelings.

Maybe he is in hell.

But that does not make him depressed.

Until the morning he awakes to a very familiar sound, he is within his normal operating parameters. He knows the sound of a  _ Lambda _ class shuttle when he hears it and for a very small moment, he has hope - overwhelming hope and dread of disappointment. It could mean Eli. It could mean Karyn Faro. Or it could also mean his imminent execution on Coruscant at the hands of Emperor Palpatine. 

"KIVU'RAW'NURUODO - WHERE IN EVERY POSSIBLE HELL ARE YOU?"

Then someone forgets to turn off the externals because-

"If I were him I'd run the other way, Admiral."

"Nonsense."

Ar'alani. Eli.

Thrawn steps into the clearing and waits, trying to figure out what this overwhelming and euphoric feeling is rising up his breastbone, why his eyes are watering, and why the smile on his face actually hurts. 


	29. October 29 Challenge: Language

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karyn Faro is learning Cheunh. Ar'alani helps.

Language

Karyn is learning Cheunh. 

For someone who has spoken Galactic Basic from the cradle, Cheunh nearly sprains her jaw and gives her a sore tongue. Kind of like her last date, only without the tasty girlicious payoff.

"You have to push the sound off the top of the mouth with the breath behind the tongue, Karyn." 

That Ar'alani's Basic is heavily accented and occasionally backasswards is the only thing that saves her sanity. The paragon of blue perfection has really given forth some howlers. 

"Okay, show me. I'm a hands-on learner." Karyn stands and stretches. 

The sub-rosa flirtation has gone on for months between them. Feint, hint, flirt, vamp and back to square one. One of these days, one of them is going to do something. When, Karyn has no idea. 

Ar'alani stands and gives her own stretch, coming around the desk with… wait… since when do Our Lady of the Durasteel Spine's hips swing like that? The moment of reflection is lost when Ar'alani's thigh slides between Karyn's and there's a wall at her back and you know they're both tacticians but- 

IMPACT IMMINENT! 

Ar'alani's mouth is sweet with caf and chib syrup and in Karyn's openmouthed surprise the tip of Ar'alani's tongue touches the roof of Karyn's mouth. Karyn pulls her down into the kiss and it's no fluke. That kiss is making her toes curl in her boots and she would swear that Ar'alani is going to give her a thigh ride… and yes she is as Karyn endeavors to show Ar'alani the softer tongue placement for Galactic Basic while maneuvering her own thigh for a giddy-up. 

She had no idea Ar'alani played for the team.

"Right there." Ar'alani murmurs, keeping her full torso pressed against Karyn, hand in her hair, rocking on Kayrn's thigh. "I can show you again, if you like."

"Yep. Slow learner. That's me. Lots of repetition." They need to kit off or each of them is going to have a wet spot on their uniforms. "Also learn better horizontally."

"And naked?" Ar'alani turned on is intense and handsy.

"Also naked. Naked's good. Really good." The rest of what she wanted to say is stopped with another kiss, slightly ferocious and Karyn feels like she's jumped into a drop tube. 

"Come to my bed, Karyn." Ar'alani's nuzzling, unfastening Karyn's tunic and it's all good because it's too hot in here anyway. "I promise to tutor intensively."

Karyn tucks her leg behind Ar'alani and shifts her weight. "Deck's closer." And down they go.


	30. October 30 Challenge: Healing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ar'alani is waiting in front of a bacta tank - and she is not pleased.

Healing

There is going to be some yelling, Ar'alani thinks. Quite a bit of it. Eli Vanto is going to be told many things about himself. She looked at his records and found his proper name with the missing middle name of Netan. If arranging the name in the Chiss manner, it would be Vanto-Eli-Netan and would give him an awkward name to yell, so unless she's going to arrange it human-style Eli'van'to it must be. 

The minute he's conscious and out of that bacta tank, that is. 

How dare he. Thrawn entrusted Eli'van'to to her and he goes out and deliberately puts himself in the line of fire. Aristocra are dangerous, underhanded, duplicitous, and cunning - and she should know because she is one! Thankfully her former family had no fingers in this attempted assassination; it's always awkward to arrest one's kin for treason. 

Three days in a bacta tank. They've stopped the drugs holding him in a medically-induced coma and his brainwave monitor is showing indications of waking. Eli Natan Vanto might be an officer, a brilliant data scientist and mathematician, and a friend, but she was in an academy uniform when he was still in his mother. Un'hee has words for him, too, along with the rest of the Navigators, but Ar'alani's the admiral and she gets to launch first.

His arms and legs move, the webwork of fresh scars marking him from hip to shoulder. A kick against the wall of the tank and then he shakes his head as if trying to clear the anesthetic fuzz. Ar'alani stands up and walks to the tank, her spine made of doonium. When he opens his eyes, Ar'alani's face is the first thing he sees. Her heart wants to be soft, but her brain is reminding her that he is under her command - and that he is also grieving. 

She sighs. "When you are out of that tank, Eli Netan Vanto, I have many things to tell you about yourself. You have much healing to do, and it will be done under my eye. Do you understand?"

Eli nods, hair drifting in the currents of the tank, a flush creeping into his ridiculously thin and fragile human skin. Of course, she can't catch any of his scent from the tank, but the look of guilt and dismay is unmistakable. 

"It is well enough. If I must pen you in with restrictive orders, I will do so. I refuse to explain to Thrawn why you came to harm in my custody and under my command." They will find him, and then she will drop Eli right into Thrawn's lap and let him do the explaining. "Be at ease, Eli Vanto. Heal and rest."


	31. October 31 Challenge: Chimaera

Chimaera

You have to hand it to Vader, Karyn thinks, what the man wants, he gets.

Five spacedocks are suspended above Kuat, each filled with a _Super_ -class dreadnought under construction. Two more lie dark and free of their rings, already completed. Bitterly she notes that ranks of TIE-D models are ready to load into the hangars in the guts of the great ships - hundreds of them. Thrawn should be here to see this, to take command of one of the Super-class, and grind the rebels to a halt once and for all. 

Karyn is aware that the viewing deck should be busy, crowded. Not many could give the order to clear it for a private viewing - maybe ten people in the entire galaxy could do it. Vader is her lord, and if he jerks the leash once in a while, at least it's lightly and with a point. The search for Thrawn continues with every resource she could ask for, Vader less concerned about the means involved than the end result. She hears him before she sees him, the respirator that keeps him alive announcing his presence.

Karyn stiffens to attention. "My Lord." 

"As you were, Faro."

Quiet descends again, and Karyn allows herself a covetous eye at one of the dreadnoughts. 

"You made it happen. They're… beautiful." One should not say that about a capital-class warship, but they are. She's seen the specs - designed by someone who's spent most of his life in space. She expects knife fights to break out over who gets one of these. "But it means something big is coming, doesn't it?"

They've both fought Gryssk, and the Eleventh running around in the Chaos has turned up as many hazards as it has discoveries. The Chiss are giving them a tenuous pass, but admirals Ar'alani and Tro'owmis pop up with their armadas now and then just to let the Eleventh know that they're still around. 

"The future is always in motion, Karyn Faro."

Karyn sighs. "As long as it's not Purrgils." Time has not exactly healed, but it's allowed the searing pain of that loss to scar over.

Vader sounds amused. "One may expect the unexpected, but not to that degree."

"So, did you ask me here to watch the fights that are going to break out over these beauties?" In her mind, she's already staffing it, working out how many new pilots, cooks, and techs she'd need.

Again, perplexingly, he sounds amused. "They are limited to Grand Admirals."

What he doesn't say is that no sticky-fingered Grand Moffs are getting in on this one. These are not  _ Lambda _ -class shuttles and private holonet comms.

"Honestly, Lord Vader, if there's a Grand Admiral ahead of me on the ladder? Let me know and I will glue his boots to the rung then climb the hell over him." Karyn looks again at the dreadnought she's picked. "He'll never know what hit him."

"There is no Grand Admiral ahead of you on the ladder, Karyn Faro."

Again, what Vader does not say is often more telling than what he does say. Karyn stops cold. Wait. What? She turns to look at Vader. If there's nobody ahead of her on the ladder- 

Vader removes something from his belt pouch, then removes her admiral's insignia - pinning its replacement perfectly in place. "Grand Admiral Faro, your flagship awaits. What is the new callsign?"

Karyn feels a fierce, burning joy. Pride. Sadness. So much at once she can hardly speak. Cramming it down, she straightens her shoulders. "Thank you, my Lord. I designate her the  _ Chimaera _ ."


End file.
